Ironically, I first heard about this diet from Robin Quivers on The Howard Stern Show. Now, even though I love Robin, a diet based on a “master cleanse” elixir always sounded weird to me. In case you’re baffled by it too, check out Lola Ogunnaike’s report in The Sunday New York Times:

While popular diets and fasts come and go, master cleanse remains a perennial favorite, a kind of folk regimen that owes its popularity to word of mouth and the Internet. Created in the 1940’s by a nutrition guru, Stanley Burroughs, to treat ulcers and other internal ailments, the fast enjoyed a vogue in the late ’70s after the publication of his book “The Master Cleanser.” Its fans then were health-conscious types, interested in purging their bodies of impurities and toxins like pesticides and food additives…

…Robin Quivers, Howard Stern’s long-suffering sidekick, told People magazine that she did the fast on three separate occasions in 2004 and shrunk to 145 pounds from a peak of 218. (She heard about it from the magician David Blaine, no stranger to challenging his body.)